I haven’t
seen either of the other Wolverine
films, but from the chatter I hear online, Logan
is the one that finally did the character justice. While the intensity of the violence and frequency
of the swearing feels a little weird to me, just because I’m used to seeing Wolverine
and Charles in the PG-13 films of the larger franchise, this movie is as
well-made as it is brutal. I don’t quite
know what it means for the future of the franchise outside the newer X-Men films set in the past, but if we
don’t see him again, this is an excellent swan song for the character (premise
spoilers.)
Set a
number of years after the events of the most chronologically-recent X-Men movie, the age of mutants would
seem to be over. Many have been rounded
up and killed by shadowy government types, no new mutants have manifested in
the last 20+ years, and the few remaining old guard are living in hiding. Logan, whose mortality, it seems, is finally
starting to catch up to him, is dealing with decreased healing, gradual aging,
and the long-delayed ill effects of the adamantium in his body. He’d like nothing more than to keep his head
down and look after Charles, whose incredible mental powers have been made unstable
by a degenerative brain disease, but he’s dragged rather unwillingly back into
the game when a woman comes to him begging for an escort/bodyguard to sanctuary
in Canada. She has a little girl in tow,
a young, lab-grown mutant who shares Logan’s regenerative powers and
adamantium-fused skeleton. With the
scientists who created (and subsequently wanted to destroy) her on their tail,
Logan, Charles, and the child, Laura, set off on a desperate race north so
Laura can take refuge.
As I
said, the violence here is insane. We’re talking limbs being sliced off and
claws sinking deep into people’s skulls.
This is arterial-blood-spraying, bone-crunching, agonizing violence,
more in line with what you’d see in Deadpool
or Kick-Ass than X-Men. Now, the fights are super cool, especially when Laura is
involved. Newcomer Dafne Keen plays
Laura as part traumatized child and part feral animal, a frightened but deadly
creature backed into a corner who refuses to let herself be taken. I love the vicious savagery of her fighting,
punctuated by primal screams and an intensely-coiled survival instinct that
takes her over. But again, it is a little jarring to see from
Wolverine – not that he isn’t capable of this sort of thing, certainly not, but
I’m so used to the PG-13 version of him that it took my brain a while to settle
into the fact that he’s the guy leaving this trail of maimed corpses in his
wake. Weirdly enough, though, the
R-level swearing is even harder to get used to – hearing Charles drop F-bombs
made my ears rings the first few times.
The story
to go along with the high-octane action is grim but well-crafted. I was reminded of neo-Westerns like No Country for Old Men. There’s just this sense of a dying era, of
aging men fighting against a callous world that’s long since finished with them
and their ilk. Even as Laura represents
a possible future for mutants, it’s a twisted one that’s already been stained
by so much horror and bloodshed, making you question if it could ever be like
it once was, imperfect as it was then.
Deeply nihilistic with tiny scraps of hope fluttering around the edges,
it’s a pretty unsettling film that stays with you long after watching.
Warnings
No comments:
Post a Comment